Lesbian for Life or Limelight?

Lindsay Lohan's and others' flirtations with Sapphos are nothing to scoff at.

If lesbianism among starlets has become so normalized that it's akin to peroxiding your hair, well, we've come a long way, baby.

In yesterday's New York Magazine's Daily Intel blog Jessica Coen writes about the various lesbian toe dips indulged in by today's young starlets. Coen lists Katy Perry, whose song "I Kissed A Girl" has got us girl-crushing, the are-they-or-aren't they heiresses Casey Johnson and Courtenay Semel, and mostly famously, Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson, as "faux lesbians" whose Sapphic dalliances "seem more like a performance for attention than actual sexuality."

She goes on to say that girl-girl-loving is a tired and easy career move. What Coen seems not to notice that a writer coming out (ahem) against lesbians with albums, movies or themselves to promote is also a pretty unoriginal way to grab attention. Additionally, the argument that LiLo's lesbianism lacks "authenticity" because she "seems less like a burgeoning lesbian and more like a confused young woman" is just silly.

Falling in love with your best friend, even a same-sex friend, is nothing new -- bisexuals have been doing it for years, and we already know that women's sexuality is not static. And even if Lindsay isn't gay for life, Jessica Coen should know better than to chastise someone for trying something, especially someone in the public eye.

As for the other women, there may be a bit of limelight posturing, but what's new about that? If lesbianism has become so normalized that, as Coen suggests, it's akin to peroxiding your hair, well, we've come a long way, baby.